The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
by s1ncer1ty
Summary: "Tell me honestly, Ken. Are you losing it?" "What do you think, Yohji? Of course I'm not. I'm about as sane as the rest of us."


"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter"   
by s1ncer1ty 

* Notes: Character development, maybe some _deus ex machina_, some one-shot wonders with loose ends that aren't very neatly tied. Unbeta'd. Shounen-ambiguousness (Yohji/Ken, but really not _quite_). Flames will be used for Omi's target practice. 

_**-.honeyrider.-**_

I only drive with the windows rolled down, ever. Even in the rain, even in the dead chill of winter. I prefer it that way, a numbing wind washing over me, chilling me to the bone. The girls that flock to the flower shop in an overwhelming mob have no idea that behind a flirtatious smile lies the chilled blood of a snake, cold like the air outside. The dim flame of a cigarette and the smoke drawn in through slow breaths are the only things I need to keep me warm. 

Ken makes no secret that he dislikes keeping the top down on the car on such a frigid night, yet I also know he hates that I smoke. However, he does not complain, since the one thing he does like is how fast I drive. Nearly midnight, the distinct lack of traffic allows me to tear down the back roads of the city at breakneck speed, twisting the small car through streets barely designed to accommodate a bicycle. And with the windows wide open, it's as close as Ken can imagine to straddling a motorcycle, the wind tearing through his hair, drying out his eyes and his tight, anticipatory smile. 

He's never been my first choice for a mission partner -- that honor instead goes to Aya. Cruel as it may seem, Aya's already managed to harden himself to the job. And while I don't doubt Ken's skill, perhaps even more admirable than Aya's, I'd much rather partner with someone who won't be nearly as touched by the dirty tasks at hand. Sure, Ken acts as if he doesn't care, as if each and every mission doesn't tear out another piece of his soul. But he does care, and the steadily growing distance in those baby-blue, once-innocent eyes doesn't escape me. 

Currently, Ken is restless; Ken is agitated. I'd offer him a cigarette if I knew he wouldn't give me the Glare of Death for it. Far be it from me to disturb him when he's perturbed. I can't particularly blame him for being restless, however, given our current mission. Our targets, two salarymen of moderate class ranking -- smooth-talking, rising executives within a proper business front. Yet these men that any lady might be proud to take home to her parents are also two perverts who find amusement in torturing and molesting children and murdering women behind the façade of legitimate, day-to-day business matters. They are the heads of the operation -- take them down, and the rest will crumble. So Persia tells us, at any rate, and, perhaps foolishly, we trust his judgment. 

Perhaps we're both too mentally attached to the case. Ken is upset that the perpetrators are targeting children; I'm enraged that the majority of those victims had been young girls under the age of twelve, girls who weren't able to protect themselves, young flowers cut down before their time. Crimes against women, of any age, always raise my hackles. Black beasts, who must pay for their crimes -- and so, they will. Instead of fuming quietly like Ken, I take my inherent rage out upon the road, putting on another burst of speed to tear through a light just as it turns red before us. 

After screeching into the parking lot, leaving smoking trails of rubber from the tires in our wake, Ken and I settle into a seedy hotel on the other side of town for the night. We close the blinds on the fifteenth story room as we finalize plans for the next day; snapshots and floor plans of the mall we're to stake out scatter across the table, and I sketch out a rough diagram of the scene. There is no coffee, no room service. Just two boys playing would-be assassins, discussing nothing but the plans for tomorrow's hit until, just a couple hours before the dawn begins to break, we wear ourselves out from the sheer intensity of our exacting focus alone. 

_**-.the other side of the moon.- **_

My heart is pounding in my ears. There is only one bed and a broken space heater that leaks kerosene and smells terrible, and Ken has insisted we sleep together for warmth. Although not completely sure how he talked me into agreement, I am thankful that the bed is a double-sized -- there is room to stretch out, to find solitude even if we're confined to close quarters. Ken's a good kid and all, but what more can we discuss, other than the mission? Flowers? Women? If only... 

But Ken is a right-side sleeper, I remember too little too late. If I'd realized, I wouldn't have let him slip beneath the covers first. When I do manage to sleep, it's always on my left side. Which means I either face Ken the entire night or move to the floor if I have any hopes of getting some rest this evening. He's a _man_, and too close for comfort. Who does he think I am, Omi? 

As it is, I'm perplexed at how he manages to sleep in the first place. Both arms wrap around his stomach, as if he were doubled over, the right one tucked beneath his side. His legs arch towards his chest, and his face is practically muffled into the pillow. I want to reach out and tilt his chin upwards, to bring his face out of the pile of pillow. But I've seen him sleep like this dozens of times before; finding another position for him is out of the question. At least he's a quiet sleeper and hardly moves throughout the night. 

He's silent now, breathing evenly in the beginning throes of sleep. Dark eyelashes, twitching, are silhouetted against the rapidly waning moonlight that spills across his face. The boy has demons -- we all do -- but once asleep Ken sheds all consequence and appears softly innocent, the premature lines of betrayal and age fading from the corners of his eyes. The beginning threads of grey at his temples disappearing in darkness. I can see the child he might once have been long ago -- innocent, much the same way _she_ had once been, before my own weakness had brought her down. 

"Asuka," I whisper in a barely audible tone as her face -- melancholy eyes and loving smile -- swims before me. Sometimes, just when you think the pain has ebbed completely, a mere thought rips open the wound and bleeds afresh. The pace of my heart quickens in my ears, pounding maddeningly. I'll never get to sleep at this rate. 

Sitting up, I take care to rock the bed as little as possible -- Ken's not a light sleeper, really, but he's certainly not a sound one either. He won't awaken at the drop of a pin, but enough movement or noise and he'll be roused. A small pouch of travel supplies is always kept near the side of the bed, filled with the usual essentials for overnight assignments, and I pull it into my lap. Toothbrush, hair gel, cologne, deodorant, condoms, and a bottle of antihistamines. Benadryl always knocks me for a loop when I'm in need of rest, and I try to take them as little as possible to keep my tolerance low. After rattling the bottle to get the cap off, I tip two fluorescent pink pills into my hand, think a moment, and shake out a third. 

The mattress shifts slightly as I set the travel bag to the side of the bed once again, and Ken makes a soft sound in the back of his throat. Swiftly I pop the three pills into my mouth and dry swallow, coughing as one manages to stick in the back of my throat. The noise fully rouses Ken, and he sits up quickly in a tangle of bedsheets, squinting at me through sleep-bleary eyes. 

"Yohji?" he mumbles hoarsely. 

"Go back to sleep, Ken." 

"What're you doing?" I cast a sidelong glance at him over my shoulder and shrug. 

"Nothing. Can't sleep." 

"There something on your mind?" 

I snort faintly, shaking my head. "What do you think?" 

"If there's anything you want to talk about --" 

I cut him off, unwilling to speak on the matter further. My tone is somewhat more sarcastic than I'd intended it to be. "I know, kid, I know. I can talk to you." 

Ken screws up his face, and I feel a sharp pain in my calf as he kicks me. Laughing faintly, I know I've deserved it. He hates being called a kid. He doesn't deserve my sarcasm. "Are you going to be restless all night?" 

"Depends on what kinds of dreams I have. Maybe I'll get lucky. In more ways than one," I return, smirking. 

"You're terrible, Yohji," Ken says, brow furrowing uncomfortably. I shrug and right myself, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. 

"You don't see me denying that, now do you?" I slide from beneath the covers and do what I should have done in the first place, stretching out upon the floor. 

"You don't have to sleep on the floor, you know." 

Chuckling lightly, I shake my head and reply, forcing a flippant tone to my voice, "You're a cute kid and all, Ken-Ken, but you're certainly not the type that gives me sweet dreams. Now, if you had long hair, curvy hips, nice breasts..." 

Ken grunts and chucks a pillow at me from the bed above, so I grab it and tuck it beneath my head, laughing to myself. "Shut up. Get some sleep, already." 

"Same goes for you. Big day tomorrow." 

"Mrmh. You had to remind me." 

I hear a rustle and creak of the bedsprings as Ken re-settles, and he falls silent once again. Soon, altogether too soon, his breathing evens out. Staring up at the ceiling, I'm almost envious of just how quickly the boy can return to slumber, while I am relegated to counting cracks through the darkness. Relegated to trying to forget, even as the fading memory of Asuka's deep brown eyes envelops me in a deep, drug-hazed unconsciousness. 

_**-.hard lovin' loser.- **_

I'm being dragged, physically from a void of blackness and blood, slowly becoming aware of the pain of life once again. My shoulder feels like it's been dislocated, but then I realize it's only sore from sleeping on the floor. I uncurl, and my back protests vehemently. 

"Yohji? Come on, Yohji, it's time to get up, sleeping beauty." He speaks the words 'sleeping beauty' in English, without mangling the phrase into an incomprehensible jumble of 'Engrish' syllables, as I might have done. Ken shakes my shoulders again. 

"Fuck," I croak, cracking open an eye. Midday sun, the clock flashing 14:26. How could Ken have let me sleep this long? Waking up from an antihistamine hangover is the worst. My bare chest prickles, and I know soon I'll be itching like a fiend. Ken, apparently, covered me with a wool blanket at some point in the night. 

"It's almost time to leave, Yohji," Ken states, quirking a wry smile. Despite the easy grin, his eyes are filled with an almost desperate insistence. "You going to be up to this?" 

Groaning once more, I force myself to sit up, the itchy blanket falling from my chest. The chill of the room begins to rouse me, and I rub a hand across my eyes. Ken must have turned off the rickety space heater at some point, or perhaps it turned off on its own; there is no smell of cheap kerosene permeating the room at all. "I don't have much choice now, do I?" I remark, hoping to sound flippant, even through the exhausted mumble. 

"Probably not. Aya would skin you alive if you backed out." A pause, and he adds, more concerned, "_Are_ you okay?" 

"Fine, Ken-Ken. _Fine_." Dismissive, perhaps a little sharp. It gets Ken off my back, and allows me to drag myself back into reality one step at a time -- slowly, upon torn fingertips. "Fuck, let me wake up, already." 

There is no coffee, but we'll be stopping to find a place to eat before the mission. In the meantime, I content myself with a single cigarette upon the balcony. The air is cold, and Ken's gaze is colder, but the sun is warm upon my hair and my bare chest; and the smoke that rises against the early afternoon light obscures the judging eyes looking down upon me from the heavens. Asuka's eyes, once bright and filled with hope for the future, now closed to any hope for my redemption. 

_**-.shindemo ii.- **_

The harigane is not, by its very nature, a messy tool. It does not leave the spill of blood like Ken's bugnuks or Aya's razor-thin katana. Sure, there's occasionally a trickle of crimson from the neck where the steel bites through skin, but for the most part there is little spilled. Usually very little to clean up at the end of a hit. 

I sometimes think that it must be a horrible, horrible way to die, having one's air supply cut off by a piece of steel as thin as sewing thread. Unlike the other boys, who can kill instantly if they'd like, I am witness to the struggles of a steady, painfully choking death every time I am sent on an assignment. At times I'm almost overcome by pity for my mewling, soundless, breathless victims. It's slow, it's tortuous, but it's also a clean, bloodless way to go. 

For that reason, once we've rid ourselves of the bodies and returned from a cold, cruel mission late that night, I give Ken the first shot at the shower when we return, exhausted, to the hotel room. As a general rule, after any mission, Omi and I would normally defer first-shower rights to either Aya or Ken, whose close-range weapons produce stained clothing, scarlet-spattered skin. The first in need of cleaning up, not only for psychological reasons, but also for practical ones -- if we were to be tracked, those two would be the first to go down for sheer presence of evidence. 

It's been nearly an hour, and the water continues to run strong in our hotel room's bathroom. While my kills are rarely messy ones, they leave my skin crawling nonetheless. All I want is to wash away the choked gasps of my victim in a wash of scalding water, cleanse it from my soul, let it spiral down the drain. Still clad in my black trenchcoat, I rise from the uncomfortable chair beside the window and crush out the remains of what must be my fifteenth cigarette of the night. My hands still sheathed in leather gloves, I rap my knuckles upon the bathroom door. 

"Hey, are you going to be in there all night?" I call through the door to Ken. "Some folks appreciate having at least a little hot water saved." 

No response, save for the constant sound of running water. I knock louder. 

"C'mon, Ken. Out with you. Before I drag you out myself." I force a hint of joking, yet unfelt, cheerfulness to my voice. I don't want to have to extract him physically from the shower. It's always been tacitly acknowledged that shower time is sacred and never -- unless absolutely, implicitly necessary -- to be violated. It's private time that each of us spends communing with our thoughts, atoning for our sins of the evening. It's our time. 

But Ken has never taken quite so long in the shower, not to my knowledge anyway. He's usually in and out in fifteen minutes or less, and often isn't this silent as he showers. On good days, I've caught him singing; on bad ones, he talks to himself. But I always walk away before I can hear the conversation he's having with himself. To listen in would be shameful, intrusive. 

Only today, Ken is silent, deathly silent. I knock again, louder, and wait several seconds before I turn the handle and let myself in. The shower runs angrily hot, and the shower curtain is parted just enough that I can see Ken's bare shoulders, shaking and reddened beneath the stream. I push my sunglasses up above my forehead and peer through the thick clouds of steam that billow from behind the curtain. I realize that the shaking comes from the fervent pace with which he's running a bar of soap over his hands. Desperate, almost frenzied, as if he can never get the blood from his fingertips and beneath his nails, can never wash away the guilt of his actions. 

"Ken?" I ask dumbly, once I've managed to again find my voice. 

His blue eyes tilt up towards me, uncomprehending for a moment. Registering the shock within my own expression, he comes back to reality with a shake of his head, flicking water from his eyes. Immediately, he ceases his frantic scrubbing, and the soap drops into the drain. 

"What do you want?" he snaps, eyes narrowing. 

At once, I force a sardonic grin to my face and lean seemingly casually against the wall. "Are you done yet? There's only so much a guy can cope with his own stench after a long night." 

Usually, a joking tone can lighten even the mood of Ice King Aya. But there are some times when it's just not worth it, and now is one of them. Ken's gaze remains hard upon me, and I know that I have truly broken that unspoken code among us all. I've fucked up bigtime. Something in me recoils under Ken's livid glare; at times like these, his temper fueled, the boy can be the most dangerous. Yet my smirk never slips once, I never drop the mask. 

"I'll be done when I'm done, Yohji." 

"Okay, okay," I remark, raising gloved hands in the air before me in attrition. My eyes never leaving Ken's, I back towards the door. "Just save me some hot water after you're done boiling yourself." Without permitting Ken another word, I bolt from the room and slam the door shut behind me. 

It's only when I'm outside the range of the boy's glare that I allow the falsely jovial smile to fall. I pull my sunglasses down from my forehead once again, slipping them over my eyes. Folding my frame into the uncomfortable chair near the window that overlooks the city skyline once again, I reach for my pack of cigarettes upon the table and light one up. For the first time in years, I inhale too deeply upon the first puff and am overcome by a fit of choking. 

By the time I've brought the coughing under control, I've quite lost my craving for that cigarette. Gently, I stub out the end and replace it in the pack, filter down. No sense wasting good tobacco. So I sit overlooking the city, watching the river of red and white lights on the cars, the occasional winking of lights going off and on. The paths of streetlamps and of neon signs. All so bright, shining through the darkness. None of that light touching me. 

I switch places with Ken the moment he emerges, wordlessly, angrily, from the shower. Stripping down to nothing, at first I merely lean my hands against the wall and allow the flow of water to spill through my hair and down my chin. The heavy steam that arises makes it difficult to breathe. But the sins refuse to wash away quite so quickly, so ultimately I merely sink into the tub and lie beneath the scalding stream from the showerhead. 

I don't move until the water has turned to ice, and even then it's reluctant. I'll never be truly clean. 

_**-.instant karma.- **_

If it weren't for Ken, I'd have found my way to bed unclothed. However, with him sharing the room, modesty becomes a bigger priority, so I slip out of the bathroom dressed in a loose-fitting pair of sweatpants. His dark eyes are still a pair of glowing embers as I emerge, burning holes through thin skin. Feigning nonchalance, I snatch my packet of cigarettes on my way out to the balcony. The night air is cold against my damp, bare chest. Knowing that Ken dislikes the smoke and not wishing to antagonize him further, I shut the sliding door behind me. 

I'm halfway through the cigarette, leaning against the chilled metal railing, when I hear the door whisper open. I take one last drag and flick the smouldering cigarette over the edge. Ken takes quiet, hesitant steps to the railing, joining me several feet away. I exhale the remaining smoke in my lungs in the opposite direction. 

"Hey," he states softly. "It's pretty cold out here." 

"Yeah, I've noticed that by now." 

"You should probably get inside. You'll catch cold standing out here. Your hair's still wet." 

I offer a casual shrug, but make no real move to head back inside. Ken's voice has softened considerably, but part of me still has little desire to test just how much he's calmed. "I'll be in when I'm in," I state, playing upon a similar phrase Ken had used earlier. 

"Well, when you're up to it, I've got some tea going. I got the kettle to work. You'll probably want to come in while it's still hot." 

I look over to him, and his expression is gentle. He's always been quick to temper, but also quick to forgive, even when the offender hasn't even bothered to say he's sorry. Perhaps, in his case, actions speak louder than words when it comes to contrition. I never want him to see my hesitation, so I just give a faint grin. 

"C'mon, Yohji. I even packed some cookies. They might not be the kind you like, but it's something sweet at least." Smirking faintly, I follow him inside, allowing the smooth, joking words to come to the surface. 

"Not the kind I like? You know, I can think of a few ways to make it up to me. Like maybe calling the dish working the front desk for room service. Remind me to give her my number on the way out." 

Ken laughs, a light, innocent sound rising through the night's sky. "Somehow, I doubt you'll forget." 

_**-.isotype, newtype.- **_

I don't realize how hungry I truly am until Ken sets the plate of cookies between us and sits opposite me at the table. He's apparently ravenous himself, and the two of us make short work of the food even before our tea has had sufficient time to cool. Ken even presses his thumb against the cookie crumbs left on the plate and licks his fingers like a child. I hide my bemused smile behind the rim of the tea mug as I take a sip. 

Immediately, I make a face at the herbal-tasting concoction and drop the cup to the table. "Are you trying to poison me here?" I remark. "What is in this?" 

"It's chamomile," he returns quietly. "It'll help you sleep." 

"Hmph," I return with a snort and a smirk. "Men don't drink herbal tea." 

Ken merely lifts his shoulders in a shrug and brings his own mug of tea to his lips. "It's probably better for you than those pills you've been taking to help you sleep. Won't hit you quite as hard." 

Now it's my turn to shrug as I return easily enough, "Sometimes it's necessary if you need the rest." 

"You don't sleep very well, do you?" 

"One of the necessary evils of the job, I suppose." 

Ken licks his lips and is silent. Too silent. When he finally speaks once again, it's in a muted whisper. "I sleep to escape. Try to, anyway. Most of the time, it's the only time I manage to find peace from everything. When I'm asleep, I'm not _here_. Do you know what I mean?" 

"I think I do. So you manage to escape most of the time, hmm?" 

"Yeah. Sometimes, the dreams continue to sneak up on me, whether I hide from them or not. But it's usually pretty rare. Unlike your own dreams, I guess " He stares into his mug, brow beginning to furrow lightly.

"Life's a bitch. It happens." Another sip of tea. It's not so bad once you start to get used to it, but I don't intend to make a habit of drinking chamomile tea all the time.

Ken smiles faintly. "It isn't always quite so bad. Most of the time, I don't dream at all. There's just ... nothing." 

"Why are you telling me this anyway, Ken?" I need to ask. I can't help myself. But I try to keep from sounding nasty or condescending as I inquire. 

Ken looks mystified for a brief moment, as if realizing how much he's told me, in not so many words. "I don't know. Maybe I just want you to get some decent sleep tonight." 

"I didn't know you cared." Smirk, tease. Part of me gets a strange, sadistic amusement out of watching Ken squirm. 

"Yeah, well. If it helps you sleep, I'll take your dreams. Nightmares must be better than nothing."

"If only you could take my dreams. Though I can't say you'd want them." I snort lightly.

Ken smirks, just a little. Sarcasm so doesn't suit him. "Maybe I can, and maybe I do."

I lift a brow, sipping from my mug of tea as I ponder Ken's words. Finally, setting the mug aside, I lean forward to murmur, only half-joking in tone, "Tell me honestly, Ken. Are you losing it?" 

He glances up at the question, startled, and chuckles. "What do you think, Yohji? Of course I'm not. I'm about as sane as the rest of us." 

His statement is hardly reassuring -- something tells me that Ken, when he finally does break, is going to break horribly. Possibly taking any number of people out with him. But, for the time being, he's holding himself together, at least for the most part. Even if I could do without his dream-talk."Good. Because I don't know what I'd do if you really were losing it." With a wide yawn and a back-cracking stretch, I add, "Come on, I think it's about time for bed for you." 

"You're only saying that because you're more tired than I am." 

"You've got that right, Ken-Ken. By the way..." I snatch a pillow from the bed and toss it at his head. Deftly, he catches it. "It's your turn to sleep on the floor." 

Smiling faintly, Ken takes the itchy wool blanket, and I climb into the bed, immediately stretching out in comfort. I don't know about him, but, unlike the previous night, I can't stare at the ceiling for more than a minute before heaviness drags down my eyelids, and I feel myself steadily, easily sinking into the softness of sleep, and the gentle lull of peace. 

_**-.shivering.- **_

Shaking breath upon my face, tickling my neck. Dragging me from a haze of blissful emptiness. Someone's close. And it isn't female. That much I can tell. 

"Yohji? Yohji...?" 

"Mrm. Ken. What time is it?" I sit up, rubbing my eyes until the digital clock comes back into focus. Two in the morning... Fuck. He'd better have a good explanation for this. 

"Late." Dimly, I see a hand pass across his eyes, hear a soft sniffle. With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I suspect that he's crying. 

"Yeah. It is." I can't see him very well in the darkness -- just the faint shadows of lines etched into his forehead, eyes too wide for this time of the night, the remains of dampness he's trying so hard to hide. "What's up, Ken-Ken?" 

"Yohji, would you mind if I --" 

I don't give him a chance to finish; he doesn't need to. What he wants is obvious, and I toss aside the blankets and scoot over to the left side of the bed. With a relieved breath, he climbs beneath the covers. Even though he keeps to his side of the bed, immediately curling onto his right side and wrapping his arms around his stomach, I can feel him shivering in spite of the heat that radiates feverishly from him. "Thanks." 

"Don't mention it. Never let anyone tell you that Yohji isn't all heart. Just don't shake to pieces on me, neh?" 

"I -- I was dreaming. It was ... bad." 

"You don't have to tell me. It's okay." It's got to be a coincidence. Perhaps karma, perhaps psychological suggestion. What else could account for such a rare occasion, by Ken's own determination, for him to have bad dreams? "Not so easy sleeping sometimes, is it, kid?" 

"No." Whispered, almost choked. He hides his face into his pillow and shivers. 

"Ken..." 

His voice is nearly a snarl. "I took them, Yohji. I took your dreams. Now please, let me be already." 

Without a word, I reach out a hand to touch his shoulder, but before the fingertips graze skin, I think better of it. No, best to leave Ken to his demons. They don't need to become my own. I can only hope that my presence alone is enough to stave off the demons that won't let him be, or at least provide distraction for the time being. 

"Ken. Thank you." 

It's a long while before either of us manages to get any sleep. 

_**-.epitaph.- **_

The sun is starting to peek through the slitted blinds when I awaken to the prickle of pins and needles in my right arm and a blissfully slumbering Ken draped against my chest. I've woken in a similar position many a time before, but never in the arms of another man. If it were anyone other than Ken, I might have been disturbed, perhaps even angry; however, this morning, I find myself strangely comforted, and undeniably comfortable. 

Tomorrow, we will go our separate ways -- he will pine for lost soccer days when he'd very nearly been a stunning success at his game, and I will move on to another, and another woman who will never quite replace my Asuka. But for the remainder of this swiftly breaking night, I will hold the younger boy against my chest, breathe in the scent of tousled hair, listen to the soft noises he makes within the back of his throat, and feel the dull thrum of his heart against mine. I will chase away the nightmares, both of his own making and of mine, and I will hold the darkness at bay. And, at least for a little while, all will be enveloped in a silent, golden peace. 


End file.
